Interpolation of Single Beam Echo Sounder Data for 3D Bathymetric Model

Claudio Parente,Andrea Vallario

doi:10.14569/ijacsa.2019.0101002

Abstract

Transmitting sound waves into water, and measuring time interval between emission and return of a pulse, single beam echo sounder determines the depth of the sea. To obtain a bathymetric model representing sea-floor continuously, interpolation is necessary to process irregular spaced measured points resulting from echo sounder acquisition and calculate the depths in unsampled areas. Several interpolation methods are available in literature and the choice of the most suitable of them cannot be made a priori, but requires to be evaluated each time. This paper aims to compare different interpolation methods to process single beam echo sounder data of the Gulf of Pozzuoli (Italy) for 3D model achievement. The experiments are carried out in GIS (Geographic Information System) environment (Software: ArcGIS 10.3 and its extension Geostatistical Analyst by ESRI). The choice of the most accurate digital depth model is made using automatic cross validation. Radial basis function and kriging prove to be the best interpolation methods for the considered dataset.

Highlights

As reported in literature, interpolation is a process of using a discrete set of known data points to construct new data points [1, 2, 3, 4]
The concept of spatial interpolation is related to the digital terrain model (DTM): introduced by Miller & Laflamme [7] at the Photogrammetry Laboratory of the Massachusetts Technology Institute, DTM can be defined as a three – dimensional representation of a terrain surface consisting of X, Y, Z coordinates stored in digital form
This study aims to realize a review of some existing interpolation methods usable for Digital Depth Model (DDM) construction

Summary

Introduction

Interpolation is a process of using a discrete set of known data points to construct new data points [1, 2, 3, 4]. The concept of spatial interpolation is related to the digital terrain model (DTM): introduced by Miller & Laflamme [7] at the Photogrammetry Laboratory of the Massachusetts Technology Institute, DTM can be defined as a three – dimensional representation of a terrain surface consisting of X, Y, Z coordinates stored in digital form. This representation can be obtained as a vector-based triangulated irregular network (TIN) as well as a grid, both displayable in 3D.

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Conclusion